Pachinko - Min Jin Lee

Author: Min Jin Lee

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Publication Date: February 7, 2017

Rating: 4/5

(This review is a part of the #BookReviewBlogChallenge organised by Great New Reads
Day 04, Prompt 4: Family)

About the book:

Profoundly moving and gracefully told, PACHINKO follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them. Betrayed by her wealthy lover, Sunja finds unexpected salvation when a young tubercular minister offers to marry her and bring her to Japan to start a new life.

So begins a sweeping saga of exceptional people in exile from a homeland they never knew and caught in the indifferent arc of history. In Japan, Sunja's family members endure harsh discrimination, catastrophes, and poverty, yet they also encounter great joy as they pursue their passions and rise to meet the challenges this new home presents. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, they are bound together by deep roots as their family faces enduring questions of faith, family, and identity. 

Review:

      I first came to know about this book when I found it in the Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee list. Plot-wise, it reminded me of Pearl S. Buck's 'Good Earth', another one of my favourites. And I was right. It does bear a lot of similarities. Starting with Hoonie and his wife Yangjin, the novel follows the lives of four generations, in and out of Korea. Trials and tribulations, minor victories and periods of stability follow the family while they try to make a place in Japan.

      The author takes great care in developing each character and the story traces all their lives with great care. The setting and the time period brings additional incentives as we get to see how the second World War shakes the lives of these immigrants and all of Japan. The feelings of displacement and discrimination that even the fourth generation of the family endures are captured vividly with a sense of pathos.
      What is with the title then? Pachinko is a kind of arcade game which provided a living to many Koreans in Japan. Mosaszu, one of Sunja's sons made his fortune running this business. He makes adjustments in the machines to ensure that none of his customers can really win however well they played. Fate does the same with Sunja's family. 
      On the whole, 'Pachinko' is a book that makes lasting impressions. In nearly five hundred pages, this sweeping family saga breaks your heart open and sews it together many times.

Favourite quotes:

"History has failed us, but no matter" - 6

"Patriotism is just an idea, so is capitalism or communism. But ideas can make men forget their own interests. And the guys in charge will exploit men who believe in ideas too much" - 276

". . . life's going to keep pushing you around but you have to keep playing" - 449

Meet the author:

Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko (Feb 2017) is a national bestseller, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and an American Booksellers Association’s Indie Next Great Reads. Lee’s debut novel Free Food for Millionaires (May 2007) was a No. 1 Book Sense Pick, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, a Wall Street Journal Juggle Book Club selection, and a national bestseller; it was a Top 10 Novels of the Year for The Times of London, NPR’s Fresh Air and USA Today.


Min Jin went to Yale College where she was awarded both the Henry Wright Prize for Nonfiction and the James Ashmun Veech Prize for Fiction. She attended law school at Georgetown University and worked as a lawyer for several years in New York prior to writing full time.

From 2007 to 2011, Min Jin lived in Tokyo where she researched and wrote Pachinko. She lives in New York with her family.